Actually there is a reason to discard that concept - these tales didn't seem to exist at all before Geoffrey of Monmouth came along. I know there's the early medieval Welsh poetry, but there's little indication he drew on any of that very much. To make his tales a plausible indication that Arthur and Merlin really existed as he wrote about them you need to start coming up with explanations like he was getting it all from faeries or that the stories actually were in the books he'd uncovered, which doesn't appear to be the case.
I don't see your point about false analogies. I'm just saying I wouldn't have characters from different fictional universes in the same game setting. No Harry Potter characters in Unknown Armies, no characters from What We Do In The Shadows in Vampire: the Masquerade and no one from The Lord of the Rings in a published D&D setting.
I notice you put in the qualifier "seem". No-one cares about stories the peasants tell to each other. For every Canterbury tales and Brother's Grimm fairy tales, there are many other peasants stories that disappear.
The wacky Greek legends (apologies to any worshippers of Zeus who are offended, I'm an atheist and think all religions are wacky), which canonically happened in the game, exist because literate Greek people wrote down the Iliad, etc.
Your belief that Merlin, Camelot, and the rest is a creation fully made from nothing, like Harry Potter, is a stronger belief in the power of historical research, than I have. There is a decent chance others had spoke of the legend of Camelot, but it just wasn't recorded anywhere.
I put in "seem" because there's every possibility that I'm missing something. I haven't found anything to suggest, though, that Geoffrey of Monmouth was tapping into some wellspring of folklore instead of making up his own new ripping yarns. If it wasn't recorded anywhere there is also a decent chance that no one had spoken of the 'legend' of Camelot because there was no such thing until the mid-12th Century.
The early ninth-century Historia Brittonum contains a lot of Arthurian material and seems to have been one of Geoffrey's sources (as well as Wace's and other writers from the 1100s). Some of its contents show that material appearing in the late eleventh or twelfth-century Welsh Culhwch ac Olwen was circulating centuries earlier—and the Arthur of Culhwch, with his band of super-powered Welsh warriors, is great saga fodder.
Agreed, the earlier accounts and poems are very intriguing but it feels a bit like they get superceded by later medieval inventions.
Sure, but an individual troupe can compensate for that if they wish.
It's also worth noting that much of the fairy lore that shows up in various Ars Magica books can't be dated back to earlier than the nineteenth century (when it was collected by the first folklorists). We assume that this lore is older, but there's no direct evidence for that--which is a technically "worse" situation than Arthuriana as far as authenticity and accuracy are concerned.
Ars Magica has placed him firmly in Stonehenge, where Arthur is also firmly placed on the timeline. They appear to be local heroes, quite insignificant in the rest of Mythic Europe, which would also explain why they are ignored in the 5ed line which has not elaborated on Stonehenge.
Of course, Heirs to Merlin draws on Geoffrey of Monmouth, and you may be perfectly right that canon has to be suppressed in a high-research saga, but their place in canon Mythic Europe is documented.
Part of the problem with the high-research line, is not that we want Merlin, but that we need something at least as entertaining as Merlin. The research to disprove Merlin does not suffice. We need the constructive research to replace Merlin, and build the complete and consistent setting with historical accuracy. That's a lot of work.
Never mind the core rulebooks - they only touch on the setting. And since the Order wasn't founded until a few centuries after Merlin and Arthur, there wasn't much reason to mention them there.
The Stonehenge tribunal book is explicit that "The account of history up to Arthur is based closely on Geoffrey of Monmouth. History from the Saxons on is based on current scholarship."
This is a 4e book though, so no longer canonical.
But the Normandy sourcebook is canonical in 5e, and has plenty of notes about places where Arthur or Merlin did one thing or another.
So yes, Arthur and Merlin are just as canonical in Mythic Europe as Bonisagus the Founder.
The whole idea of "faerie" as some overarching concept is quite modern, and certainly did not exist back in the Middle-Ages. Several of the creatures and stories existed, but they weren't clumped together under any umbrella term.
Well, I don't think they're just as canonical at all. The core rulebook in its various editions has been around much longer than The Lion and the Lily, which I don't see as one of the more indispensable sourcebooks, and it's not hard at all to decide that all the references are just to folklore, which may indeed be fact in Mythic Europe but then again it may not. The book does also say that a lot of the tales were circulated by troubadours and were often either fictional or embellishments on real events. Taking Bonisagus the Founder out of Ars Magica canon requires a lot more work.
It is not a matter of degree. Something can't be just a little bit canonical.
Either they are canonical or they are not. In this case, they (Arthus and Merlin) are canonical in Mythic Europe.
What you or some other player decides about what is or is not in your version of Mythic Europe, has absolutely no bearing at all on what is canon or not.
Which official sourcebook something appeared in is also irrelevant for the matter.
Arguing about canon in ArM5 has a tendency to end in a mess. With over 40 books, it is both necessary and hopeless. See here and ff for an example to keep in mind.
Ars has deuterocanonical material though
material from previous editions that was decanonised but has bled in, like the Seekers and Old Ones,
material marked as contingently true like Dies Irae
material that is optional but becomes true in play like many plot hooks
material marked as canonically unreliable, like the Marco stories in covenants.
So canon isn't a matter of black and white. That way leads the terrible fights we had back in 2nd edition. "Your mileage may vary." is vital to the health of our community.
It seems to me that there are as many pre-Geoffrey of Monmouth references to the Order of Hermes and Damhain-Allaidh as there are to Merlin.
Perhaps when Dav'nalleus was the the Mafia Godfather of British hedge wizards, he arranged for written records of Merlin to be expunged, for whatever reason.
There was still an oral tradition, inaccurate as that may be, that Hermetic Magi may have heard of.
Perhaps a Seeker compiled research, and Geoffrey of Monmouth got to read them.
I love that wording.
... and it really emphasises how one has to read Ars Magica books ...
There is no one voice of God who has laid down one consistent ruleset. We have a myriad of authors who have made their own interprations over the years. Their accounts are neither complete nor consistent. One thing they agree on is that the game is designed to build on historical accounts, but they are also neither complete nor consistent.
Hence all we can do is to piece together one interpretation that works at our table, and more importantly than all the canon testimonies, it has to take into the account the fact that we have bounded rationality.
The legends of Arthur are being recorded in the 13th Century. Presumably from traditional/Faerie sources, which helps explain why they are such a stew.
Yep, it should also be safe to say that regardless of their historical existence, faeries reflecting these stories will start to manifest.
Semi-relatedly: I had an idea once for a modern-day saga in which "Merlin" was speaking in visions to young magi, granting them advice (part of the premise was the return of supernatural power to the world, a la Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), but was actually a faerie who wanted to gain enormous amounts of power by making itself central to the story of these new magi.
This idea could probably be transplanted into Mythic Europe itself - I like the idea of some Ex Miscellanea magi thinking they are recovering an ancient magical tradition, but actually just getting sold a load of hokum by a powerful faerie.
Sounds totally plausible to me. There's no end to the number of Arthurs and Merlins you might meet once faeries have got hold of the idea.
If you really want to make Merlin a historical personage in your saga I think that's one possible way to go.
The thing is though, for Merlin and post-12th Century Arthur to exist you need to come up with some knotty and convoluted reason why Geoffrey of Monmouth was relating the truth, whereas it's much less hassle just to go with actual history in which he was making of it up.
"Geoffrey of Monmouth was a Companion and had access to secret Hermetic records" seems as good a reason as any?